.TH PRINTF 1L "GNU Shell Utilities" "FSF" \" -*- nroff -*-
.SH NAME
printf \- format and print data
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B printf
format [argument...]
.br
.B printf
{\-\-help,\-\-version}
.SH DESCRIPTION
This manual page
documents the GNU version of
.BR printf .
.B printf
prints the
.I format
string, interpreting `%' directives and `\e' escapes in the same way
as the C `printf' function.  The
.I format
argument is re-used as many times as necessary to convert all of the
given arguments.
.P
.B printf
interprets `\e0ooo' as a an octal
number (`ooo' is 0 to 3 digits) specifying a character to print, and
`\exhhh' as a hexadecimal number (`hhh' is 1 to 3 digits) specifying a
character to print.  It has an additional escape, `\ec', which causes
.B printf
to produce no further output, and an additional directive, `%b',
which prints its argument string with `\e' escapes interpreted the way
they are in the
.I format
string.
.SS OPTIONS
When GNU
.B printf
is invoked with exactly one argument, the following options are recognized:
.TP
.I "\-\-help"
Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
.TP
.I "\-\-version"
Print version information on standard output then exit successfully.
